Muy guapo!

I sure hope you would buy a boom from this man because we just did! Only in Mexico can you have the kind of experience we had yesterday; Mexico where people are resourceful as heck and will surprise you with what they have stored on top of their houses.

Our story began with a broken boom back in May, and continued with the trials of finding a fix. Ours is a story of denial of the seriousness of our issue, followed by the realization that a new boom would be upwards of 2000$ plus shipping to Mexico, and then the dogged determination that comes from simply refusing to pay that much money when there are many other things Galapagos needs. Our tale is one of reading the signs of the universe when they say ‘stop, this isn’t the right thing’ and then waiting for that green light when the pieces begin to fall into place. You never really know for sure when you are riding the waves of the universal green light until you have the boom in the back of the pickup truck and you’re barreling down the road with your husband riding in the back, arm lovingly draped around his new piece of metal.  Frankly, we won’t be completely sure that some cosmic trick isn’t being played on us until that boom is installed on our mast. But anyhoo…

This is legal in Mexico. All Mike’s dreams were coming true. A boom, AND a ride in the back of a pick up truck. If it weren’t for all the dust, that would be a big grin on his face.

We got hooked up with the cowboy in the photo, Chuey,  by the magic of the internet. Mike and I had posted all over the web that we were looking for a boom, knowing there was one out there somewhere and we just needed to find it. After many false starts and dead ends, we had come to terms with the fact that we were mistaken. There was no boom to be had and we surely would not have one when we went back to Mexico. Having several other things to deal with at the time, we just accepted that and were prepared to move on. Perhaps we would order one when we got south to the La Cruz area.

Then in early October I got a text from a woman named Lauralee from Sandy, Utah. She knew a guy; a guy who had salvaged a few boats back when Hurricane Newton came through. One had been a Moody 44 or some such larger boat and he may still have parts from that boat. She knew he had some booms in his yard so she sent him a message and he replied with some photos of the boom she had asked about

. When I got those photos I could not believe it. The boom looked just like ours, down to the fittings.  Turns out it was the very thing we needed! Right manufacturer, right size! Just the length was wrong, but that was OK because we really only needed about 8 feet of length. This boom was 14 feet. Could this be ‘the one’? 

Hitching a ride with friends and truck owners Lynn and Curt Brownlow on S/V Slow Motion,  we showed up at Cheuy’s house with high hopes of boom ownership. He lives on the outskirts of Guaymas in an area of farmland and modest houses. There’s a dragon fruit farm down the road. Mangos and bananas grow by his house.  Goats wandered down the street, chickens and turkeys scratched, and a serious guard dog announced our arrival. He announced and announced and announced, the cute little ankle biter.

Seriously guarding everything. I think he bit that tire.

One of two cocks in cages.

As we knocked on the door and took in the local surroundings I wondered where Chuey was and why I didn’t see any boat parts lying around in the yard. Just about the time we began shaking our heads wondering if he was going to keep the appointment, a cowboy on a horse came tearing around the corner, little cattle dog in his wake.  You can’t make this stuff up. Was it the stars in my eyes or perhaps the burning Mexican sun that took me straight out of my own life and into a western film set? With an absolute flourish, he ripped off his dark glasses and dust mask announcing, ‘Hola, amigos! I am Chuey! You want to see the boom?’.  My mouth hung open as I missed the photo op of the century.

After hand shaking all around and talking cows with Mike (Chuey and his business partner have about 30 of them), Cheuy led us into his yard and leaned a ladder up the side of the house, motioning Mike to follow him. His boat yard? On the roof.

Mike went up. I do not like ladders unless they are absolutely necessary, especially when you have to climb around them with no handholds. Nope. Plus, I would have just been in the way. Mike and Chuey would bond, as manly men on a rooftop filled with boat parts often do. My woman voodoo magic had no place up there.

It was absolutely necessary that I climb the ladder to take a photo of the top of this roof for posterity. It’s pretty smart to keep stuff up here. That’s a lot of real estate up there not being used for anything else.  See anything you need? Chuey’s your guy. He stores the smaller stuff inside the house. I believe that might be much to his wife’s chagrin.

The boom looked like it was in very good condition, with the caveat of a small dent in one side. But even so, there was plenty of material for our needs and the fittings looked like they were in good shape. Extras! After their male bonding time, Chuey and Mike struck a deal that was agreeable to both and about $200 later that boom was securely tied in the bed of Curt and Lynn’s truck. 

I had a nice chat with Cheuy, who showed me his boat skipper’s license. He also works on boats and that’s how Lauralee met him. He’s done work on her boat and she’s been a very satisfied customer. Business concluded and needing to get back to his cows, Chuey saddled up, gave the horse’s rump a slap, and rode off in a cloud of dust. Farmer, cowboy, boat skipper, and dealer in used boat parts, Chuey is a man of many talents.  If you’re relating this story to your friends and in the telling you let slip that he bounded into the saddle in one super-human leap, I wouldn’t say you lied. 

Next stop: the metal shop. Until then, S/V Galapagos out!

Mike and I have literally been lazing around doing almost absolutely nothing for, let’s see, 4 days now. This is the laziest we’ve been in a good long while and I feel almost, but not quite, guilty about it. We’re trying to embrace the time to do absolutely nothing before the next rush hits. But I have to tell you, sitting on the couch for 5 hours binge watching the new Lost in Space has done nothing good for my body. (Could Parker Posey BE any more evil as Dr. Smith?)

When we last posted we didn’t have a plan and weren’t exactly sure what we would be doing with the boat. Would we be repairing and splashing her again? Would we be flying home to Washington from our easy flight out of Loreto as planned? The answer to those questions is NO and NO.  It didn’t take us long to realize that the hull needed to dry for an extended amount of time. We made the tough but necessary decision to leave Galapagos on the hard in the storage yard at Marina Seca in San Carlos. We’d figure out how to get home from there, changing our ticket as necessary.

I’ll tell you this: that’s a decision we hope never to have to make again. The amount of work it takes to get a boat ready to leave in the hot, dry yard is way more than I ever want to have to do again, although I’m realistic about that. My anxious brain plays out every scenario it can come up with and I find myself ziploc-bagging all the books, heat sealing things like pens that can dry out, heat sealing all of my artist paints (the ones I’ve used exactly once so far), vacuum bagging every single cushion and piece of cloth aboard, throwing out perfectly good food (it went to the yard workers) and then heat sealing any foods I refused to give up because I can’t get them in Mexico. If they ruin, I’ll throw them out at that point.

A juvenile RockMover Wrasse at Punta Perico. Winner of the Best Snorkeling of the Season award.

Then, because I worry about bugs (OK, I perseverate about bugs. Fine. I admit it, ok?)  I had to place bug gel in every conceivable place aboard. Hey, at least if we have to bug bomb the boat, all the cushions will be sealed against that poison. Doing this in the heat was not a lot of fun, not to mention the smell. I’m not talking about the smell of the boat, either. I’m talking about the smell of our own selves. We would go to the boat early in the morning, work feverishly until we couldn’t take it anymore, then drag our dripping pathetic selves back to our air conditioned apartment about a mile down the road,  worn to a frazzle and smelling even worse. We literally stripped our clothing off as we walked through the door.  If you’ve done this, you know the feeling. Maybe this is why most people leave their boats in Mexico in March. Of course, they miss out on the warmer and clearer water that way, too. It’s a trade off.

While I was inside doing all my things, Mike was stripping the outside of the boat of anything that could possibly catch wind or be destroyed by the sun. Sails down and stored below, all running rigging removed and stored below, winches covered, the list seemed endless and just when we thought we had done everything, I’d think of something else. Every thru hull plugged with material that allows water through but keeps bugs out. Every screwhole that is just the right size for a solitary bee to build a nest (which we discovered one day) covered with blue tape. At some point we knew we had to call it good and just say goodbye.

That’s a little bee, making its home in a bad place by the fire extinguisher.

But wait! There’s more! Just as we thought we’d done it all we got the gift of a day of heavy rain from the remnants of hurricane Bud. What an interesting experience to be walking in a warm downpour. The winds were actually pretty mild compared to what we’ve been through already in the Sea of Cortez, but we haven’t seen rain in months. Literally. Galapagos has a few thousand miles under her keel since she has seen rain of any measurable amount. And you know what that means? That means leaks. So, ironically, we were actually grateful for that day of heavy rain because we learned we have a drippy hatch over the galley now. We put a pan under the leak. There was another small drip through a light fixture over the nav station. God only knows where that is coming from. A container is under that, too. It’s the best we can do at the moment, and we were glad they appeared before we left. Add those to the list of ‘fixes’ when we get back; in cooler weather.

Walking back to the apartment, we could go no further and had to retrace our steps. There was a lot of water in one day and there is very poor drainage on the roads in places.

If this is what happens after one day of rain, I can’t imagine what several days of rain would look like.

So last Saturday we went to the yard early, expecting a move to the storage yard at 9:00 AM.  We waited. 10 AM rolled around and we were still waiting. Mike finally went to the office where he discovered we would not be moved that day. Their trailer for moving boats our size wasn’t working. Our boat would have to wait until Monday. And, this being Mexico, we assured ourselves that Monday would come and go and the boat would still not be moved, so we would either have to change our travel plans again or leave her there to the tender mercies of the marina, who would move her into our carefully chosen spot as soon as the trailer was fixed. We decided that we would leave her and it would be fine.

Alarm bells rang in my head but the cooler part of the brain prevailed as we discussed this new plan with other cruisers who happened to be doing the same thing. They reassured us that their boat had been left many times and the marina would do right by us. Omar, in the front office, assured us he would text us photos of our girl as soon as she was in her spot. We spoke to the yard manager about what we needed in terms of chains on the supports, and the spot we had chosen which faced into the wind and was on the asphalt, rather than the spot they had assigned us. That spot faced the wrong direction, meaning that water would enter our cockpit during a storm from the south and south wind would catch our hard dodger; putting stress on the boat. Reassurances given, we let it go as much as we could and walked away. The rain may have been over, but our faces were wet as we trundled down the road dragging suitcases behind us. The party was over. It seemed somehow wrong.

Our travel plans to home had changed dramatically. What was once going to be an easy trip home was now much more complicated and less enjoyable. We opted to take the Tufesa bus to Tuscon, and then fly out of Phoenix at the end of the week. We landed at the home of some good friends of ours who have a place in Green Valley, AZ. They aren’t there during this hot part of the season, but the home was available and they graciously allowed us to stay there. Here we sit, doing nothing but cruising the internet and watching Netflix because it’s 108F outside, even hotter than Mexico. It might be a dry heat, but it sucks the life out of us.

Omar followed through with his promise. They moved the boat to her chosen spot with no issues on Tuesday and he texted us photos that reassured us that she is sitting where she is supposed to be, supports chained. The rest is up to the fates.

Here she is next to her friend, Black Dragon.

So now what’s the plan? We go home on Saturday, Mike’s birthday. We have some goals while we are there, one of which is to make final decisions about what to do with our house. We love our house but probably will not grow old there for many reasons. We have to either rent the place or sell it, and we lean toward selling although that’s an emotional decision that is hard to make. We hope that these decisions will be made clear when we get there and spend some time.There is loads of work to do there to get it ready one way or another, and possessions to go through and release. There is yard work, painting, all the stuff of home ownership. Some of those things I look forward to doing.

The other goal is to put some money in the cruising kitty. To that end Mike is looking for a contract gig in IT.  I am crossing my fingers he can find something where he can live at the house with me while he’s working and enjoy our last times with our son before he goes off on his own adventures as a married person. Here’s a little excerpt from Mike’s resume, in case you know someone who is looking for an employee of his caliber. One thing that’s not on this part is how well he plays with others. That’s important, and one of his best attributes.

“My 25 years of increasingly responsible experience allows me to be comfortable and confident presenting complex technical data to leadership and other professionals. I have extensive experience in the following areas: 

 – Analysis, development and presentation of complex web-based data in engineering, manufacturing, finance, and marketing

-Managing projects and developing inclusive, collaborative partnerships with customers

-Working with customers during requirements analysis and discovery”

Our goal is to return to Galapagos in the fall, timing dependent on many things, including whatever work contract Mike picks up. We need to keep that goal firmly in front of us. As Mike has said, it has always felt like a little bit of magic that we have been able to do this at all, to even leave the dock the first time. Now we ask for more magic of the same kind.

Why we have to go back.

Welp, readers, we are on the hard in San Carlos. Just when we were getting used to being able to swim at will off the boat, just when we were seeing sea horses and eels and octopi and flying herds of mobula rays and all the other incredible underwater creatures, suddenly the party is over.  How long will we be in boatyard hell? If I knew the answer to that, I’d buy a lottery ticket. You might want to settle in with a beverage for this post.

Galapagos getting trundled down the road to the Marina Seca yard  in San Carlos.

It’s like this: shit happens when you are not paying close enough attention, when you are still learning that all the charts are wrong (except for the Blue Latitude charts) and that’s really the only explanation for what happened on March 30. We have no excuses except for our own humanity. We just made errors in judgement. Due to those errors we had an encounter I like to refer to as a ‘deep French kiss’ with a big flat rock near Los Candeleros; probably the same one many other boats have left their mark on. It’s not that the rock is uncharted. It’s just that we weren’t sure which chart was accurate and we didn’t stay far enough off. Whoops! Poor Galapagos. She’s such a forgiving vessel. It took us awhile to forgive ourselves for this, but here we are now, no worse for the wear.

Thankfully we were going dead slow and were heading into deeper water when the cursed  rock leaped with malice and deliberation into our path and smacked Galapagos on her not-insignificant bottom. Otherwise we might be writing a different blog post. We felt like crap about it, but, well, if you’ve never hit a rock maybe you just weren’t trying hard enough. We slid right onto it, and then we backed down off using our trusty and reliable Beta Marine engine. We were very, very fortunate as in all of our mishaps.

All of our mishaps? Let’s see. So far during this year we’ve lost our headsail, we’ve hit a whale (totally the whale’s fault), lost our boom, somehow cracked our holding tank (might have been the whale that did that), and given a rock some love. These things, and others that will surely happen at some point, are  why we bought a big, thick, fiberglass hull of a boat. It takes a lot to take our girl down. She needs to protect us from our own stupid sometimes.

Yep, that’s a project all right.

I have to tell you, this rock encounter was the loudest event ever. Honestly it sounded like the entire boat was coming apart in the moment but after lifting all the floorboards it was clear we were still floating. Later we realized why there was so much noise. It wasn’t the rock’s fault. It was that Mike had left his wall unit of thousands of stainless steel screws, bolts, etc, unsecured in the workshop. He had been organizing all the pieces. Oy.  The impact sent the drawers flying, spewing metal pieces all over the workshop floor. The cacophony! Could have been worse. Those drawers left standing on the counter top could have joined their brethren on the floor.

After it happened we pulled into Puerto Escondido and had a diver check the hull and take photos of the damage and decided that while there certainly WAS damage to be fixed, it wasn’t a deal breaker and we’d continue with our cruise and fix it when we hauled out to do maintenance. And that’s how we find ourselves here, in a cheap apartment about a mile from the Marina Seca boatyard with Mike in the kitchen checking out the cassette tape player and listening to Mexican music he doesn’t understand. I’m hanging out underneath the air conditioner, which barely keeps up with the heat. It’s an interesting life overall, but we are about to get a whole lot of bored. But let’s go back to our arrival here in San Carlos.

Le sigh. This was a nice hotel room.

As has been our usual routine, we had not made reservations for things like haul outs or hotel rooms preferring to just trust that things will work out like they generally do. Since having determined dates on the calender causes us untold stress because…sailing… we arrived with only a loose plan that we needed a haulout date and time, and then a hotel room or Air BnB, in that order. Little did we know that the marina would be offering us a haulout time of 3:00 on the same day we walked in the door. We took it and hightailed it across to the lovely Hotel MarinaTerra, throwing ourselves on the mercy of handsome and charming Juan Carlos, behind the front desk. Did they possibly have room for us for three nights while we got our feet on the ground and figured out how long we’d need to be here? Juan Carlos typed quickly into his keyboard, frown lines wrinkling his really very attractive eyes. After hemming and hawing and clicking frantically, he was able to ‘move people around’ to accomodate us for the low cash up front price of 1700 pesos per night. We would need to go to the ATM just up the street to get the cash. No need to take our names, etc. Just find him when we got back and he would check us in.

Nice view, huh? You don’t want to see the view from our current digs.

The ATM turned out to be a little further than “just up the street” in the 90+ degree heat and dripping humidity that felt more like 105 degrees. By the time we got back I was sweating alarmingly and was probably a nauseating shade of pink. We approached our Juan Carlos, money in hand. “But Señora! You are sweating!”. Honestly, had the lad offered me his handkerchief I would have taken it willingly. My parasol simply was not up to the task in this weather. “Yes, well, Juan Carlos, it’s a long walk to that ATM just up the street.” Eyebrows raised in consternation, “Walk? You walked to the ATM? No no no no! Why would you walk? You must always call me if you need something. Here is my phone number. If you need to go anywhere else you call me and I will get you a taxi. We work with two taxis who are honest.”  NOW he tells me.

We hand our money over to our shining friend, who says that this day is his birthday and this is why everything is working out for us, and ask for the receipt. Receipt? Receipt? Juan Carlos ‘splains everything: “Here we have two systems. We have the regular system where we print out a receipt from the computer and we have the cash system, which is cheaper, and where there is no receipt. But here are your room keys, and the towel cards for the swimming pool. And you tell me if you need anything and if you want to stay longer I will find something for you even if we are very full because today is my birthday! ”  Since manager Jesus was standing by (and perhaps his name may have had something to do with our decision to just roll with things, as we’ve learned to do in Mexico, even when it makes us all kinds of nervous), we threw our American-caution-receipt-loving to the wind. After all, we don’t give a flying donkey’s hind end what happens with that money and they don’t have our credit card information. We just want a room with a marina view and excellent air conditioning and maid service. And that’s exactly what we got for three glorious days. If only we had been able to enjoy it more. Instead we were at the boatyard sweating and swearing during the hot parts of the day.

On the first boatyard day it looked like things were going to move along quickly. A well known metal-working man named Raphael came from Guaymas and looked at our boom, taking the short end with him to his partner at his shop to discuss and come up with a bid for repair. We, fortunately, had a translator with us when Raphael came to visit because otherwise who knows what we may have agreed to. Today Mike found the short end of the boom returned to the yard, sitting by the boat. No word from Raphael, no idea what is going on in his mind about our boom. Will he be able to fix it? Only Raphael knows and he’s not talking. At least not today. Perhaps Monday. Or Tuesday. Hell, we got here without a  boom, so I guess it’s technically not necessary to have one but we are not much of a sailboat without it. On the other hand, it’s dead simple sailing with only a headsail and a tiny mizzen acting as the main. We sailed almost all the way here from Isla Carmen that way.

On the second boatyard day we found a guy who used to build holding tanks out of PolyEthylene. He doesn’t anymore but he came with some rod and tried to repair ours for us. We were hopeful as we stood around the back of his pickup truck watching him melt the material into the holes in our tank. But it appears our tank material is somehow compromised and the rod has trouble sticking in certain trouble spots. He did his darndest, but it still leaks a bit. However, we’ve been limping along with it like this for months now, the butyl roofing tape holding the leaks at bay. As long as we don’t let it get too full, it’s fine. We just keep it pumped out frequently. We could cruise with it like this until we are in an area where people still build poly tanks; an area which, apparently,  is not around here. We are leaning toward just leaving it alone for now. We should stop borrowing trouble.

1970’s chic is everywhere. Why yes, that IS a VHS player underneath the TV. It probably works, too. The bed is behind that screen, which also effectively blocks the AC from circulating around the rest of the room. But that’s why there’s a huge roaring fan called ‘Wind funnel’ or some such thing.

Take a look at that standing refrigerator! A very nicely furnished kitchen except there is no built in oven. Just a free standing oven that is over the 8 track/cassette player. It’s way too hot to consider baking anyhow.

Meanwhile, back at the hotel, our time in luxury was running short. We couldn’t keep paying 80$/night and still enjoy it. Mike located this Air BnB place for 39$ a night.  It looked like a reasonably good place, had air conditioning, and the listing said there was a pool we could use. We snagged it and checked in. Alas, no pool. Really, I’m pretty irritated by that because I could use an outdoor activity that involves water without the additional elements of sand and salt. Also the air conditioning is marginal. It’s too small a unit for this large a place and has to run on high all the time. These are small things compared to dying of heat exhaustion in the boatyard , and you get what you pay for.  But come on, man! Don’t tempt me with the promise of a pool if you can’t deliver! And I need to clarify each and every single item that is in a listing if it’s important to me, I guess. Honestly, we probably would have taken it anyway because the hotel was booked for the weekend, Juan Carlos was nowhere to be found when we needed him,  and we needed an affordable place within walking distance of the boatyard. Thankfully there is good wifi and the blender works.

This guy. Wow.

So aside from living arrangements on land,  the big question remains “Is the party over?” for this season. Will we get back into the water in time to sail back to Puerto Escondido and stop for one last lingering snorkel? The determining factor in terms of how long Galapagos will be in the yard, is how long it will take for the damaged part of the hull to dry out. It was drip drip dripping water for two days but has slowed down considerably today. Yesterday one of the yard workers took on the hot job of grinding out all the loose material so we could get a good look at the damage and also so it would dry out more quickly and make a clean area for repair. I felt for the guy but I’ve never been so pleased to pay anyone 115$ in my life.  It was brutal work. So she’s ready to fill and glass in, but she’s not dry enough yet and so we wait. Here’s why that’s an important issue, and you’ll just love the irony of this:

We fly home on July 2 from Loreto, on the other side of the sea. Yes, it’s a deadline! An APPOINTMENT! We have an actual reservation and have paid for our tickets, an act which we knew would lead to a thwarting of the cruising gods, we just were not sure how. We had planned to leave Galapagos on a mooring ball in Puerto Escondido because we wanted to leave her in the temperature-moderating water rather than in the blazing hot boatyard. We were happy with that decision. However, if she doesn’t dry out fast, and we want to be absolutely sure she is very dry before repairing her, then we will have to change plans and leave her here at Marina Seca with the hundreds of other boats left behind by their owners. It’s like long term daycare for boats here; a great sea of masts. That would mean finding a way back across the sea with our luggage to pick up our flight out of Loreto because we cannot cancel those tickets without a significant penalty.

We have options. There is a ferry to Santa Rosalia from Guaymas. There are also flights from Guaymas to Loreto. We’ll be checking all that out. I mean, what else will we have to do with our time? It’s too hot to do outdoor activities away from the water. Heat exhaustion is a real thing and we’ve both been close to the edge a couple of times. So for the next few days we have plenty of time to do all the research. We have good wifi at this place and the air conditioning is right over the bed, which is king sized and made of memory foam and actually really comfortable. I’m predicting a lot of naps in the next few days. And that blender will be getting plenty of use.

S/V Galapagos, out, for now.